Rare Disease: Cardiac Risk Assessment With MRI in Patients With Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1

• Main Authors: Marco Alì, Caterina Beatrice Monti, Luca Melazzini, Rosanna Cardani, Barbara Fossati, Michele Cavalli, Kelvin Chow, Francesco Secchi, Giovanni Meola, Francesco Sardanelli
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-03-01
• Series: Frontiers in Neurology
• Subjects: myotonic dystrophy; cardiac magnetic resonance; myocardial strain imaging; extracellular volume; cardiac fibrosis
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fneur.2020.00192/full

Introduction: To evaluate myocardial strain and extracellular volume in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) patients as potential imaging biomarkers of subclinical cardiac pathology.Materials and methods: We retrospectively analyzed 9 DM1 patients without apparent cardiac disease who had undergone cardiac magnetic resonance at our center. Patients were age- and sex-matched with healthy controls. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare cardiac strain between the two groups. The t-test was used to compare the extracellular volume obtained in DM1 patients with that in healthy subject. Spearman's ρ was used for studying the associations among imaging parameters.Results: Global cardiac strain (median −19.1%; IQR −20.5%, −16.5%) in DM1 patients was lower (p = 0.011) than that in controls (median−21.7%; IQR−22.7%,-21.3%). Global extracellular volume in DM1 patients (median 32.3%; IQR 29.3%,36.8%) was significantly (p = 0.008) higher than that reported in literature in healthy subjects (median 25.6%; IQR 19.9%,31.9%). Global cardiac strain showed a strong, positive correlation with septal strain (ρ = 0.767, p = 0.016) and with both global (ρ = 0.733 p = 0.025) and septal extracellular volume (ρ = 0.767, p = 0.016).Discussion: The increase in cardiac extracellular volume and decrease in strain are signs of early cardiac pathology in DM1. Physicians dealing with DM1 may take into consideration cardiac magnetic resonance as a screening tool to identify early cardiac involvement in this condition.